


Scattered Tales

by samariumwriting



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Cats, Children, F/F, F/M, FE Rarepair Week 2019, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Romance, Stargazing, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-08 10:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20834216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: A collection of fics for FE Rarepair Week 2019.Chapter 1: Alm/Conrad, prompt: leaves. Alm has a bit of a crush and Celica helps him out.Chapter 2: Lorenz/Leonie, prompt: tea. Lorenz invites Leonie to tea and she accepts.Chapter 3: Ashe/Felix, prompt: cats. Ashe just really wants to see Felix smile.Chapter 4: Xander/Kaze, prompt: thankful. A quiet summer afternoon in Nohr.Chapter 5: Marianne/Ignatz, prompt: warmth. Marianne and Ignatz watch the stars together.Chapter 6: Ingrid/Leonie, prompt: change. Ingrid was never a fan of change.





	1. Alm/Conrad - Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my fics for FE Rarepair Week 2019! I'm grouping these together in one fic so feel free to just skip to the ones you're interested in.

Alm may have been a child of Rigel, but he was raised in Zofia, and that usually meant that when he saw something beautiful, he related it to nature.

It was something everyone did, for as long as he’d known. So when he looked at Celica’s brother for the first time, the first thing that came to mind was ‘his hair looks like autumn leaves’. They were fighting for their lives in a labyrinth of tunnels, desperately trying to overcome Duma’s hold on the world, and he’d thought about leaves.

It was slightly embarrassing, because he’d never met the man before in his life. He hadn’t even caught a glimpse of him when they’d been in roughly the same place at the same time during the war. He’d spent all this time fighting to get Celica safely back by his side, and then Conrad was the one he looked at and thought ‘oh he’s pretty’.

But he shared everything with Celica, always had and always would, and when he told her about that, she laughed nearly until she cried. “You’re hopeless,” she managed, between giggles. “Autumn leaves?”

“Am I...wrong?” he asked. Maybe there was a more apt comparison. Or maybe Celica just found it hilarious that he found her brother attractive.

“I’d compare it more to coral,” she said. “Coral is a much softer, slightly more pink colour than leaves. But there are more important things to discuss.”

“Like what, Celica?” he asked, his brow furrowed. The war was over, the battle was won. Meeting Conrad had come right at the end, and this conversation was at the dawn of a new age for Valentia. There was, Alm hoped, nothing too pressing to discuss.

“Like how we’re going to get you, nervous dork extraordinaire, and my brother, who has the emotional range of a pendulum, to actually talk to each other,” she said with a laugh. Alm pulled a face.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to Conrad. It wasn’t that he didn’t think that actually that was a really good idea because Conrad had a very nice voice and he was usually quite shy about speaking when Celica was there too. It was just that he didn’t want to make a fool of himself.

So he voiced those thoughts as well, and Celica laughed again. “I think you’ll be just fine,” she said. “He’s quite a sweetheart, really. He can seem scary sometimes, but he’s just a boy. I think you have more in common than you’d first expect.”

So, of course, for the next few weeks, Celica put the two of them in the same space as much as she could. She asked them to run errands together, sat them next to each other at meals, left rooms spontaneously on an ‘urgent task’ when they were both coincidentally looking for her.

It was half infuriating and half exciting for Alm, really. He was perhaps impulsive by nature, but not when it came to something like this. He had no experience, and Conrad was three years older than him - a real adult. He’d matured a lot since he left Ram Village, he’d been forced to, but that was different. It wasn’t life experience like Conrad surely had.

He quickly found, however, that he was completely wrong in that assumption. Conrad knew perhaps even less than him about the world around him. He was learned when it came to history and literature and all the things Alm didn’t have much experience of, growing up in a farming village where barely a quarter of the inhabitants were literate, but when it came to the world…

Alm first learned that Conrad was, in fact, entirely inexperienced when he asked about where the man had grown up. In response, Conrad laughed. “Oh, it was just a little place,” he said. “Only a handful of inhabitants. But I wasn’t allowed to even leave the house when there were outside visitors, so I don’t even know the people who lived there very well.”

Alm couldn’t imagine that. Sure, he’d never left Ram until barely a year ago, but he also knew everyone in that village, and everyone knew him. He could tell you how many stakes of wood were used on the fence surrounding the village, and how many children every household had. Conrad’s situation was similar, but at the same time so alien.

“Were you glad to come back to Zofia?” he asked, and the way Conrad looked at him set Alm’s heart leaping.

“Of course,” he said. “I came back to help my sister. She was...other than Halcyon, she was the only living person in the world to show me much kindness. Until I came here, of course, and then everyone was so kind. It’s like another world compared to the rest of my life.”

It was sweet, Alm thought, that Conrad viewed the war in that way. Sure, he viewed the war as good in a round about way seeing as they’d won and achieved so much, but at the same time there had been so much loss. If someone asked him if he was glad he’d left Ram...he would have said it was bittersweet. There were some things that a man simply should not have to do, and he’d done many of them in the last few months.

But to see the time since the war started as the best part of his life...it was a unique way to view it, to say the least. “I suppose the rest of the world sort of is another world when you’ve grown up like we have,” he said.

“Absolutely,” Conrad returned. “Had I not left that hamlet, I never would have met someone so close to myself, after all.”

Okay, Alm flushed at that. “Oh, I- I suppose we are quite similar,” he said. They both cut across that border that had separated Valentia for so long, in their own ways. They’d both come into the world so suddenly, at a time of turmoil, and now...now they were here.

“We are,” Conrad said firmly, and though he spoke with so much conviction, Alm could see a faint blush colouring his cheeks. And then he reached out and seized Alm’s hands, because of course he was so earnest and happy to share his thoughts that he’d do that. “I’ve spent rather a lot of my life feeling very lonely, Alm,” he said. “To meet someone so similar to myself...it is a relief, I suppose.”

Alm chuckled, and he knew that his own face was bright red. He hoped Conrad had enough experience with people to know what that meant, because he would be absolutely mortified if he had to explain his feelings any time soon. Conrad, with his bright eyes and soft hair and his hands that were just slightly smaller than Alm’s...it got him feeling flustered, that was all. “It’s nice,” he agreed. “It makes me feel a little less swamped.”

“I’d agree,” Conrad said, a softer smile forming on his lips. His lips that were definitely very soft. “Though I have no idea how swamped I would feel if I didn’t have you to talk to. I’m thoroughly lost, most of the time.”

“Well, we can muddle through together,” Alm said, returning the smile. “I’ll be happy to have you at my side for every mistake I’ll inevitably make.”

“Likewise,” Conrad said with a laugh, “but don’t forget all the achievements we’ll be able to experience, just waiting on the horizon.”

Their hands stayed linked for a little longer, even after they lapsed into silence. Celica really was devious, and far more clever than Alm; it was times like this he appreciated her more than ever.


	2. Lorenz/Leonie - Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorenz invites Leonie to tea, and she accepts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was requested by a friend on discord :)

Leonie was not the model of nobility, nor was she the model of...well, anything in particular at all that Lorenz was interested in. Normally, the typical womanizer passed her by. People didn't care about the short haired girl who probably, according to them, tumbled out of a haystack, lacking in sex appeal and fully formed.

The point was that she had not been expecting a situation like this to arise. No one invited her for afternoon tea, least of all Lorenz. But he'd asked her, for some reason, and for reasons she couldn't fathom any further, she'd accepted.

Actually, she did sort of know why he'd accepted. Because she was an idiot, and even though Lorez had the worst haircut known to man and an even more obnoxious personality, she...she felt she owed him for something. Seeing as she'd been so rude to him before. It wasn't that she liked him, or anything. Definitely not. 

It wasn't that his kindness was oddly charming. Or that he was actually quite intelligent when he stopped pretending like he knew everything. Or that he had nice eyes.

...All of those things were true, of course, because Leonie wasn't an awful person and she could admit that Lorenz had at least a handful of good traits. And maybe those things had a tiny bit to do with why she accepted his invitation, because even if she did feel guilty she wouldn't go to tea with someone she loathed. Well, she wouldn't even feel sorry for him if she loathed him.

Which meant that she was having tea with Lorenz on a sunny summer afternoon, wondering how on earth she'd managed to get herself into this situation.

Lorenz was...Leonie would describe him as an accommodating host. An adequate host. Someone who at least wasn't half bad. She wouldn't describe him as a perfect host, because this was Lorenz and if you described anything he did as perfect then he'd probably never shut up about it for the rest of his life. So he as a decent host. With a good taste in tea and nice table manners.

Leonie was maybe not such a fantastic guest, but she didn't actually care, and for once Lorenz didn't pick her up on every tiny thing that made her feel like she should care. It was almost...pleasant, she supposed, to take some time out of all the things she would normally do to spend some time just relaxing. For once, Lorenz's company could actually be described as just that.

They talked a little about mundane things - their latest assignment, riding classes, Claude's latest scheme (here was where Lorenz did actually become a little obnoxious - Leonie liked Claude well enough, even if he was the strangest and often rudest person she knew). The new member of their class, how strange he was, how smart and yet so lazy. Then, their conversation turned a little more personal.

"Why did you never consider becoming a knight?" Lorenz asked, when Leonie offhandedly mentioned that it was something she'd never really imagined she would do (they'd been talking about Ignatz, and where his talents truly lay).

"Oh, I just don't think I'd be very good at it," she said with a shrug. "I'm an independent kind of person, you know."

"I'd noticed," Lorenz replied. "But that's not exactly something that disqualifies you from knighthood. You wouldn't call, say, Raphael the paragon of usual knights either."

"Oh, I think I could do it," she said, "I just don't think I'd want to, you know? I wouldn't enjoy it all that much. Knights are great and all, but I don't really fancy taking orders from someone else. Knighthood is all about, I don't know, throwing your life away for some abstract idea of a greater good."

"You've spent too much time talking to Felix Fraldarius," Lorenz said with a laugh. "That is definitely a Kingdom view of knighthood. I wouldn't expect the same degree of self-sacrifice from an Alliance knight, myself, and I doubt any lord would." 

"I know," she said, "but it's not just that. I want to protect people with my power and my choices alone. So that I know that, when I do good, that's me, helping people. I spent a lot of time when I was a kid believing that my life would come to one thing and one alone, so I want to be more than that."

"Hunting?” Lorenz asked. Leonie shook her head.

“Sure, for a while,” she said. “But eventually I was meant to settle down. Have children. That kind of thing. And that’s not really my style, but I thought there wasn’t really much other choice for me. Having the choice to do what I please...it’s pretty important to me, if I’m being honest.”

Lorenz was silent for a moment, and Leonie’s mind immediately filled in the gaps. He probably didn’t take too kindly to her rejection of motherhood; nobles were pretty keen on that whole passing down the bloodline thing.

Instead of what she thought, however, Lorenz chose that moment to surprise her. “I think that is an admirable position to take,” he said.

She looked at him. “Wait, you do?”

“Of course,” he said, taking a moment to have another sip of his tea. “Gathering the strength of will to choose one’s own destiny is no mean feat. I cannot fully choose my own path in life, dictated as it is by the duties of nobility, but-”

“You could,” she said. “You could renounce your inheritance, if you really wanted to. Take your talents and use them elsewhere. Admire my fortitude as much as you like, but you definitely have more options than me.”

“...I will take your point,” Lorenz said. “I choose to wear my nobility as a badge of pride, and feel caught up in those obligations. While I could, if I chose to, discard that, in reality I would not be able to bring myself to do so. You chose to take that leap, Leonie, to challenge that obligation. For that, I really do think you are fantastic.”

“Wow, thanks, Lorenz,” she said. There was definitely heat on her face. Lorenz was decidedly unreserved about affection, that much she was perfectly aware of, but having it directed so strongly at her...well, she didn’t object to it.


	3. Ashe/Felix: Cats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: cats. Ashe just really wants to see Felix smile.

Ashe is fully aware that Felix has to have a softer side than the one he shows to everyone else. He knows this because he knows that Felix doesn’t just have one setting; Ashe has seen him talk to Dimitri, his words full of bitter barbs, but has also seen him talk to Mercedes, his confidence faltering and something resembling softness entering his voice.

So, he reasons, there must be something that brings out a sweeter side in Felix. He’s not like Dedue, who will give someone a silent look of warmth mixed with pain if someone mentions a happier past (Felix will, in fact, shut everyone out if they try to mention anything about an earlier time, and Ashe learned this very quickly). He’s not like Ingrid, who wears her passions on her sleeve and will happily chatter about them whenever she can.

Ashe doesn’t have a clue what could let him see Felix’s warmer inclinations. He also doesn’t know why exactly he wants to see them. Interacting with Felix can be a chore on its own, with him liable to snap at any moment. Trying to probe and find that softer part of him would probably only end in Felix getting embarrassed and probably yelling at him.

But also...Felix was so tightly wound. All the time. Ashe had never once, never in the months he had known him, seen Felix relax even slightly. The closest was while he was in combat, and that really didn’t count because he was still scary then. He wanted Felix to feel like he was allowed to be happy, or at least work out how to make him happy, because everyone deserved that.

...also, Ashe really wanted to see Felix smile genuinely. That sight was so rare and he wanted to know how to make it happen. More than anything, really, which was slightly concerning and there were probably a lot of thoughts there that Ashe needed to unpack about his feelings towards his friend.

But that was for another time. The current priority was working out how to make Felix smile so he could break out a little from that cold facade he put up. Because Ashe knew it was a facade. It had to be, because no one could be quite as lacking in positive feelings and as rude as Felix all the time. Surely.

Ashe tried cooking him food he knew he liked, but all that achieved was Felix eating more than usual and not being so snappy during meals. He tried complimenting him, only to receive responses somewhere on a scale between staring and “I know”. He tried training harder, because Felix liked it when they did well in combat, and he tried helping Felix with the finer points of his studies.

It was clear Felix appreciated a lot of those things, but they were all...they were all things Ashe already knew Felix liked. It didn’t produce any surprise reaction or anything at all out of the ordinary. None of those things could coax a soft smile onto Felix’s face.

So, when Ashe discovered what it was that could bring out that sweeter part of Felix, he was surprised, because it was a complete accident. He’d spent weeks trying to get Felix to smile, to be happier, anything, and then just the right thing appeared all on its own.

The monastery was full of animals. Some people fawned over them, others passed them by without much more than a second glance. Felix was, as far as Ashe knew, part of the second category. He had never once seen Felix stop to pat a dog on the head or fuss over a cat.

Naturally, Ashe wondered if his eyes were betraying him when he got up early one Saturday morning and saw Felix sat on a bench with a cat in his lap and the softest smile Ashe had ever seen on his face.

Felix apparently hadn’t noticed him, so Ashe...watched. He felt the tiniest bit bad for watching, because Felix wouldn’t want to be watched, but he also didn’t feel bad because Felix was actually smiling. As in, actually and honestly and oh Goddess he had dimples when he smiled like that.

There was something gentle in Felix’s eyes that brought heat to Ashe’s cheeks as he watched him gently stroke the cat in his lap. It was one of the smaller ones, a normally very skittish dark brown tabby who wouldn’t let anyone get close unless they had food in hand. But there it was. In Felix’s lap.

Ashe watched, dumbfounded, for maybe longer than was even vaguely acceptable. But he didn’t care, because this was a precious moment. A rare moment. Who knew when he’d catch Felix smiling like that again? It felt like...Ashe felt like he needed to take as much of the moment in as possible, because not just anyone got to see Felix like this.

But after several minutes, he knew he had to get moving. If Felix looked up and saw Ashe watching, who knew how that would damage their friendship? He had to make the first movement and he definitely couldn’t let Felix know how long he’d been there.

When he made his way down the steps and towards the bench, it was the cat who reacted first. It meowed and jumped off his lap, dashing off towards the bushes. Felix immediately looked up, and the soft smile on his face was gone. Ashe couldn’t help but be disappointed. “What are you doing here?” he asked. The harsh tone in his voice was still there.

“Oh, I’m just up a little earlier than normal,” he said, trying not to sound too flustered. He was pretty obvious, if he was being honest, but Felix tended to be fairly oblivious to the emotions of others so he was probably safe. “I’m headed to the greenhouse.”

“Right,” Felix said. He stood up. “I suppose I’ll see you at breakfast.”

“Sure!” Ashe said, a smile on his face, but he was...loath to end the conversation so soon. “Do you like cats?”

Maybe it was a mistake to ask. Felix’s face turned stonier than ever. “You didn’t see a thing,” he said. And then he walked off. Just not before Ashe saw the blush forming on his cheeks. Felix was quite cute, really, when he wasn’t being incredibly scary. Ashe would definitely keep the memory of his smile firmly in his mind until he got the chance to see it again.


	4. Xander/Kaze: Thankful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quiet summer afternoon in Nohr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was also for a friend on discord! :)

Summers in Nohr were not exactly warm, nor were they filled with particularly beautiful days, but that didn’t matter all that much to children. Even though the daylight hours were short, and the castle grounds were dry and mostly rocky, they tumbled around without a care in the world.

Xander kept an eye on Midori, watching carefully as she chased her older brother around the pond. She was usually fairly steady on her feet, but she (and Siegbert) were likely to panic if she fell in. He had to make sure they were safe. They ran around in loose circles, and she never caught up to him; he was faster and had much longer legs, being a full two years older than his sister. Occasionally, he would catch her, and she would laugh, turning right around to chase him in the other direction. It was a wonder they weren’t both dizzy.

“It is times like this that I am truly thankful for everything we went through together,” Xander said. At his side, so close that their shoulders were touching, Kaze was reading a book, but he hadn’t turned a page in quite a while.

They had been hard times, of course. Full of so many things that Xander had not wanted to do, so many losses he had never wanted to experience. His father. Azura. Laslow, Odin, and Selena, who had vanished like smoke at the end of the war. All four of them had.

His father...Xander turned his gaze back to his children, playing in the castle gardens. They would not be able to experience this kind of happiness, had his father still been alive. He would not be able to experience this kind of warmth. “I’m thankful for every day we stole seemingly from the hands of fate,” Kaze replied.

“Sometimes I do wonder why you settled for me,” he said, his chuckle slightly hollow. He knew that the Kaze’s feelings for his late brother were...complicated. But it was Xander who had led the army that tore Kaze’s homeland apart, and he knew that wasn’t the easiest thing for Kaze to come to terms with. Especially when he had a part in it himself.

“Because,” Kaze said, closing his book finally and placing it at his side, “you are a remarkable man.”

Xander smiled. “You always flatter me so,” he said, “as if you were not far more even than my equal.” From the beginning of their work together, there had always been a mutual respect between them. Respect turned to friendship turned to companionship in their darkest and brightest hours, and companionship became love. And their two children, and a long life ahead of them.

“I could never claim to be any more than I am,” Kaze replied. How he remained so calm when Xander showered him with compliments he would never be able to fathom. Kaze’s sincerity never failed to get him at least a little embarrassed, even when he tried not to show it. “That said, I am thankful that I am enough to stand by your side.”

“You always were,” Xander said firmly. Even as enemies, Kaze had been a formidable opponent. A shadow in the dark that he would not stand against and feel at ease. “And I’ll forever be blessed knowing that you decided to.”

“You’re quite the romantic sometimes,” Kaze said. Neither of them were prone to affection, but Xander reached out his hand anyway and smiled softly when Kaze took it.

“I try my best,” he said.

“You gave me a dagger as a birthday gift,” came the swift reply, accompanied by a chuckle. “Your sisters bought me a more romantic gift than that.

“I said I try my best,” he said, smiling at the sound of his husband’s laughter. His best wasn’t always particularly romantic. “Besides, you said you liked it. It was a very nicely crafted dagger.”

“Oh, it was,” Kaze said, an almost mischievous smile dancing over his lips. “It made a fantastic cake knife.”

“Don’t remind me,” Xander said with a laugh, his gaze falling on their children again. Siegbert, already a full five years old and adamant that he should start doing things on his own, had asked if he could cut his papa’s birthday cake, only to take up the dagger on the table and stab the cake.

“Oh, I’ll continue to remind you for as long as it embarrasses anyone,” Kaze said, an even wider smile on his face. Just looking at him made Xander feel light, and he leaned in for a quick kiss, which was immediately followed by loud noises in the direction of the pond and then their rapidly approaching children. So much for a tender, romantic moment.

Midori reached them first, immediately flinging herself into Xander’s lap. He caught her, just about, so she didn’t end up falling right past him and into the tree he was leaned against. “Father, father!” she said. “Can you play with us?”

“Father, I think Midori is bored,” Siegbert said, and looking over Midori’s head, he could see Siegbert looking very serious. “I did try to entertain her.”

“You did a good job, Siegbert,” he said, and his son beamed at him. “I’m very lucky to have such a talented and caring son.” Midori looked up at him and pouted. “And a lovely, energetic daughter, of course.” He smiled again when Midori’s frown turned into a smile and she wriggled her way closer to his chest to put her head on his shoulder.

He was such a lucky man - to have such a beautiful, incredible family, and have them all care so deeply for him. There had been times in the past when he had feared he would have to walk his path alone. The world had been cruel to him, and to Kaze, and to all his siblings.

But they’d pulled through, and Xander would be damned if his children would suffer in the way he had. He would do anything to prevent them from feeling his sadness, his pain. And in everything he did to ensure that, he knew Kaze would always be by his side.


	5. Marianne/Ignatz - Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marianne and Ignatz watch the stars together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I highkey strayed off the prompt for this one but it's so soft so I don't mind at all. This is for another friend on discord, and be warned that it includes spoilers for the Golden Deer route!

Marianne is, emphatically and completely, not used to the feeling of someone else’s arms around her. It wasn’t that she didn’t crave affection, but she spent most of her life entirely denying it. She spent years upon years trying to convince herself that she didn’t deserve it, didn’t need it, and that it would be better for everyone else if she just never had it.

Times have changed, and she’s willing to admit that perhaps she does want at least a little bit of that affection. If anyone was willing to spare it for someone like her, maybe she would be able to bring herself to accept it. Now that she felt like the curse on her blood was lifted and she didn’t feel like everyone she spent more than a few moments with would fall to some terrible fate.

But years of holding back, years of fearing the worst if she dared so much as smile in another’s direction, made it difficult to cross that gap. She didn’t know how to approach someone, to end the distance between them and move into a relationship that could involve...anything. A touch on her hand, a kiss on her cheek on a sleepy spring morning.

Imagining such things filled her with a warmth she had been alien to for so long, and Marianne wanted that experience so desperately. She needed to feel another’s hands in hers. She was so used to thinking of herself as less than human that sometimes she defaulted to that and she still needed a reminder.

She wanted it, but she’d never seek it out. She’d accepted that, after all this time being alone, distancing herself from everyone, that maybe no one would want to give her that affection. She’d long since accepted that, and while she wasn’t ready to spend her whole life alone...she knew she might have to.

Those dark thoughts always seemed to swirl around her mind at times when she felt like she should be happiest. At the side of all of her friends, having overcome everything that stood in their way and standing at the dawn of a bright future for Fódlan, she should have felt better than she did right now.

But instead, she’d excused herself from their victory feast and she stood on the Archbishop’s Star Terrace. Inside the building, Marianne knew that the Archbishop was sleeping fitfully. She was on her deathbed, that much everyone knew. She hadn’t made it to the feast.

It was a warm evening, and all the stars were out, shining brightly. It really was a wonderful view, and out here on her own, she felt...closer to the Goddess. A Goddess whose truth she now knew. Whose death she half mourned every time she saw the Professor.

Marianne wished she could stop her thoughts from shifting to dark places and just appreciate the stars. Claude had told her about the constellation stories they had in his homeland, and how they differ to the ones in Fódlan. They even had different constellations, in places where the stars looked different from across the mountains. She tried to focus on all those stories instead of the swirling thoughts of loneliness crowding her mind.

“Oh, Marianne!” The soft voice and the surprise it held betrayed its owner; Ignatz stood at the doorway to the terrace, and after a moment of silence, he stepped outside to join her. “I didn’t know you were up here. You said you were tired, so I thought you’d headed on to bed.”

“No,” she replied. “It was getting a bit rowdy in there for my tastes. I wanted to look at the stars.”

“Me too,” he said with a chuckle. “They really are beautiful. I could never remember all those names and stories, but it makes you think.” Most of Fódlan’s constellation stories referred to legendary heroes from the time the Goddess walked the earth. Knowing what she did now, Marianne wondered which of the stories were true, if any.

“I know a few,” she said, and Ignatz smiled and stepped closer, coming to stand next to her. “That one,” she continued, pointing at the brightest star in the sky, “is the star of Saint Seiros. The story goes that when she passed from the world and went to live forever with the Goddess, everyone across Fódlan lit a candle, and the lights went with her.”

That, of course, wasn’t true. Seiros was tossing in bed barely more than ten paces away from them, her heart ever struggling to continue beating. But the beautiful sentiment of the story remained, tinged as it was with the bitterness of a millennia of deception. “And this one,” she said, and she leaned a little to the right, into the space where Ignatz was standing, to point with her left hand to a chain of stars, a loose line of five, “is the parade of heroes.”

“Tell me about them?” Ignatz asked, and when he shifted next to her Marianne worried that she’d intruded on his space and he would step away. Instead, his warm fingers interlocked with hers.

She flushed, but continued. The warmth from his hand was spreading to her heart. “They were five brothers,” she said. “They weren’t related by blood, but each of them had the same name, and each were from a different village in the Empire. Each one was born on the day the divine Seiros received her revelation, and they fought alongside each other in the war, and died as heroes on the same day, so the Goddess blessed them with eternal brotherhood.”

“That’s such a sad story,” Ignatz said. Privately, Marianne had always agreed. Eternal life didn’t sound happy to her, and nor did a short life if you took the view that stars could not feel like they did. A long, happy life would be better, and those brothers couldn’t have that. “Stars can’t share happy moments together with their families.”

“All they can do is watch,” Marianne agreed quietly. “And watching isn’t always beautiful.”

“Sometimes you have to be a part of that moment,” Ignatz agreed, and he squeezed her hand. Marianne knew she was blushing, and that if she looked over at Ignatz and away from the stars, that he would be too.

“Claude told me the story about the stars from Almyra,” she said. “There are seven of them visible there, though three aren’t as bright as the other four. There, the stars represent the four seasons and the three parts of the world; the earth, sea, and sky. The story goes that the seasons fought the world for the right to change them at will, and because there were four of them rather than three, they won, and they shine brighter as a result.”

“That’s a very different story,” Ignatz said. “I feel like it serves a different kind of purpose to our story.”

“I like it better,” she said. “I prefer it when the stars weren’t real people once.” She preferred it when the stars didn’t honour the deaths of five men whose shared name wasn’t even remembered by the myth. They were just nameless soldiers who never got to live a full life.

“There’s enough going on with the real people down here,” Ignatz said, a light chuckle filling the warm night air. He was running his fingers along her knuckles. “Speaking of, Marianne…” He paused.

“Ignatz?”

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said, and Marianne’s heart sank, “to go back to Derdriu. I need to talk to my parents. And then I’m going to become an artist. So don’t...I want to stay in touch, okay? I want to live that real life of real people together.”

It was so clumsily yet so elegantly put that Marianne didn’t know whether to laugh or to kiss him. So, under the stars, with nothing else to see them, she did both. And she got the feeling that, unlike those nameless soldiers, she would finally be able to live a full, happy life. One where she wasn’t alone.


	6. Ingrid/Leonie - Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ingrid was never a fan of change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was requested by chiffonades on twitter! It was? Surprisingly really challenging? But I hope you enjoy nonetheless!

Ingrid had, honestly, always hated change. She had been born into a specific situation where her whole world was set up for her before she even understood what a future was, and for most of the formative years of her life, that situation stayed exactly the same.

And then it ended. And it fell apart. And she lost almost everyone she knew, in one way or another.

So, yes, Ingrid hated change. She hated it when she couldn’t control things that happened. It was foolish, because change was a fact of life. And when you knew so many people, sometimes they changed, and she definitely couldn’t control that.

Change was worst, she realised, when everyone had been gone for so long and everyone looked different. She looked different, she knew that, but that was somehow...not quite as bad as the others. She’d matured in a way that she was happy with, and she felt much more like an adult than she had when she’d turned eighteen at the Academy.

Almost everyone else probably felt the same way about how they’d changed (his Highness, of course, would be an exception to that), but Ingrid couldn’t quite bring herself to share the sentiment.

Ingrid’s conflict in her feelings about all of this could especially be applied to Leonie. When she was at the Academy, she hadn’t exactly idolised Leonie, but she was close. Ingrid adored her dedication, her principles, even if she was a little too rough round the edges to be a knight.

She’d hardened in their time apart, just like everyone else, but while someone like Felix had hardened to a dark, dangerous ice, and Ashe no longer reminded her of a fragile bloom on a spring morning, Leonie had hardened more like a diamond.

She was stunning. She was beautiful, even. She’d ditched the short hair in favour of a braid down her side that reminded Ingrid of a sunset and yet she was still...herself. She had that determination that followed her like a cloak, and that childish joy mixed with a new maturity.

But Ingrid hated change all the same. She missed the times when they could go out riding together without fear of an enemy ambush, or being spotted by a spy or scout. She missed Leonie’s easy smile (it still showed itself, frequently, but not so often) and the way her laugh sounded when she didn’t care what anyone else thought.

Ingrid knew it was natural that things had changed. Her own laughter didn’t come quite so easily, and her smiles had been rare in the first place. Trailing behind her at every corner was the knowledge that she had to take responsibility for her lands soon. It had been real at the Academy but now? It was frighteningly close.

She didn’t have time for a petty crush on a beautiful woman she’d struggled to keep out of her thoughts for the past five years. She didn’t have time for that kind of distraction. Especially not with a woman with no money to her name, no noble title, no...well, she had a lot going for her, but not the kinds of things her father was looking for.

And a large part of her doubted that Leonie would even look twice at her. They spent a lot of time together, sure: they trained together, ate meals together, fought together. They usually spent long afternoons together looking after their mounts, and occasionally in spare moments they’d have tea together.

Ingrid knew that Leonie gave and received affection liberally, but it couldn’t help but make her hope when their hands touched when they reached for the same biscuit, or when Leonie leaned over the table to wipe her mouth with a napkin (completely unnecessarily, of course, and that was just what made Ingrid hope all the more).

She knew she wasn’t special, but she still hoped against hope that she was. She didn’t want to be stuck with her three idiot friends for company for the rest of her life (not that she didn’t love them all, but they were, well, boys. They were incapable when it came to feelings) and no one else. She was worried that when all was said and done, Leonie would disappear off to her hopefully long and fulfilling life and leave Ingrid to hers, which would be ever emptier than before.

Ingrid was fully aware that the world would change once more when this war was over. She was in the process of changing it by the power placed in her own hands, and yet...she didn’t want it to change again. Not if it meant that it would move Leonie out of her life forever.

But the war did end, and they won, and the world changed all over again. All her friends were closer than before - she was closer to them too, and yet she still felt like the odd one out. The one stuck at the side of the picture, never quite breaking in.

She didn’t feel like that all the time, of course. Experiencing their victory was incredible. Knowing that things would be looking up for everyone in the Kingdom, everyone in Fódlan, was priceless. There were so many wonderful moments, and seeing the man she’d watched grow up become King was worth everything they’d all struggled through - to her, at least, it was.

Leonie moved on, just as she’d expected her to, but not...not for as long. Within a few months, she was back in Kingdom territory, doing what she could to lend a hand. And whenever she could, far more frequently than she needed to, she stopped in Galatea territory.

There was no reason for Leonie to be in Galatea so often. Ingrid knew that. Leonie knew that. But neither of them ever brought it up. In fact, she would say that they actively avoided bringing it up, because if either of them admitted to it then maybe it would have to end.

Leonie visited at the end of every job. She stayed for an afternoon, then a day, then a couple of days, then until she managed to get a new job. Then she stayed a bit longer. And then Ingrid couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving again, even though she knew Leonie would return once more.

It was ironic, she supposed, that she spent so long internally berating her friends for never talking about their feelings when she couldn’t bring herself to share her own. And yet, Ingrid also felt she didn’t need to. Because Leonie started bringing flowers with every other visit, and they exchanged heartfelt letters when she was away.

And, well, if one day they privately exchanged rings (of simple silver, because neither of them were flashy nor could they afford anything too fancy), sharing only a few words of devotion between them, no one needed to know. Their relationship was special, and shared between them and no one else.

This was the kind of change Ingrid could accept. Slow, quiet change, with someone by her side every step of the way. Her wife by her side as the world changed around them; this time decidedly for the better.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you enjoyed, please leave a comment with your thoughts and consider following me on twitter @samariumwriting.


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